Category: players

Pollok FC are delighted to announce that teenage forward Mikey McWilliams has signed for the club on a permanent basis through to the end of the 2019-20 season. He joined the Pollok United set-up towards the end of last season from Vale of Clyde YFC and after signing on a ‘delayed transfer’ basis from the 21s, has been a regular in the matchday squad so far this season. Back in August, he made his debut against Largs Thistle, then started his first game in November’s draw with Petershill and scored his first goal down at Valefield against Kilbirnie in December.

Pollok are delighted to confirm that three players have extended their contracts until the end of next season.

Summer acquisitions Danny Boyle and Danny MacKenzie are joined by recent signing Jamie Henry in agreeing terms for season 2019-20.

Danny Boyle has made 25 appearances in a Lok shirt, only missing one game, since his move from Rob Roy. His counterpart MacKenzie has featured 16 times for Pollok scoring two goals.

Former Aberdeen youth captain Jamie Henry joined the club at the tail end of last year and has made 7 appearances so far in the Lok midfield.

Earlier this month the club released striker David Gormley to allow him to sign for amateur side Nico’s. Aaron Millar also departed the club at the end of his loan period from Clyde. Once again, we’d like to wish both players well for the future.

David Gormley has been released by the club in order to sign for amateur side Nico’s of the Strathclyde Saturday Morning League. He has battled injury all season and despite that, fired in five goals for the club since August. All at Newlandsfield wish him all the best for the future.

Aaron Millar’s loan from Clyde has now expired, and the forward has now returned to Broadwood. Having initially made his debut at Newlandsfield vs. Rob Roy back in August, he found game time difficult to come by at Pollok and has now been loaned out to Arthurlie by the Bully Wee. Best of luck for the future, Aaron.

Pollok are delighted to announce the capture of Jamie Henry on a contract until the end of the 2018-19 season. The Clydebank-based central midfielder has been without a club since leaving Brechin City in August. Having played for a number of sides in the West at Pro Youth level, Jamie joined Aberdeen when he was 15, became captain of the youth team and remained there until 20, enjoying a loan spell at Arbroath during his time at Pittodrie. After moving on, he spent last season back at Gayfield during the first half of the season and finished it with Annan Athletic. He impressed on his debut, winning man of the match no less, so here’s hoping Jamie enjoys more of the same in the weeks, months and years ahead. Welcome aboard!

Jamie being presented with his MOTM award by sponsor Peter Graham last weekend.

Pollok Football Club can announce today that the club’s captain, Paul Gallacher, has signed a new 2-year deal that will keep the cultured central defender at the club until the end of season 2020-21.

Gallacher told pollokfc.com: ‘The manager asked me about signing a new agreement, and to be honest, it didn’t take me too long to come up with an answer.

‘For me, being captain of Pollok is a responsibility I take very seriously, and the reality is, I can’t imagine myself playing anywhere else.

‘It was an easy decision. For the moment though, all I’m focussing on is Saturday, and leading the team in the Scottish Cup.’

Club manager Murdie Mackinnon was keen to impress the importance of capturing Gallacher’s signature: ‘Paul has been the captain at the club for four seasons, and is a real leader, on and off the pitch.

‘He has an excellent attitude and is as committed a captain as I’ve seen in the game.

‘He very seldom puts a foot wrong on the pitch and his positional sense is second to none in the junior game.

‘The fans know how lucky they are to have a player like Paul playing for Pollok, and it’s important to me to show them how much I appreciate their support by keeping guys like Paul at Newlandsfield.’

Gallacher has appeared 148 times for Pollok since joining, scoring 14 goals in the process.

Pollok are pleased to announce the signing of Josh Watt from Bo’ness. The left sided winger started his career at Motherwell which included loan spells at Airdrie Utd and Raith. After a spell in the Icelandic Premier League with AI, he returned to Scotland with Stenhousemuir. He also counts East Stirling, Cumnock, Queens Park and Clydebank among his former clubs.

On his signing, manager Murdie MacKinnon had the following to say;

“Josh is a tricky player who is a strong runner with the ball. His delivery from set plays and open play is fantastic. He’s got an eye for goal too!”

As part of the deal, Michael McMullin has moved to Bo’ness. We’d like to thank Michael for his efforts at the club and wish him all the best for the future.

Pollok can confirm that Mohamed ‘Sena’ Niang has now left Pollok and has signed for Scottish Championship side, Partick Thistle.

Sena graduated from the Pollok United Soccer Academy in the summer of 2017 after having captained the U19’s the previous season. As the first academy graduate to make the step up, he made his first team debut against Arthurlie in a 1-0 Sectional League Cup win and made his first league start a few games later away to Kirkintilloch Rob Roy in the league. He finished the 2017-18 season with 20 appearances.

Sena has made 9 top team appearances this term and he scored his first goal for the Lok in a 4-1 win against Maryhill.

On his move, Sena had the following message for the Pollok faithful;

It’s been a pleasure to play for Pollok. It’s a journey in my life that I am never going to forget as it gave me the platform to go and play the best sport in the world and finally achieve my dream, to be a full time footballer.

I would like to thank the fans as they’ve been great to me since the day I made my debut. I always gave 100% because of how much love I have for the Pollok fans and my teammates.

I would like to wish all my teammates and coaching staff all the best for the remainder of the season. I will miss playing at Newlandsfield, but now that I live closer to the ground I’ll be coming to most home games as a fan to cheer on the lads.

I’d also like to say a massive thanks to the academy from mini kickers all the way to the Under 19s for always been supportive and cheering my name. You guys mean a lot to me. A special mention to the squad and coaches from last years Pollok u19’s, a brilliant bunch of lads who were always there for me when I needed support.

MTLN!

Commenting on the move, manager Tony McInally had this to say;

All of us in the dressing room are delighted that Sena has managed to secure his dream move of playing full time professional football after securing a deal with Partick Thistle. We have worked hard every week with Sena on all aspects of his game so it is fantastic that Thistle have seen this improvement and potential in the lad to offer him a great deal.

On a personal level, I’m really pleased that his teammates worked with him and helped Sena every week to provide support and experience to him on and off the pitch to develop into the player he is today.

From the dressing room we would like to wish Sena all the very best in the next step of his football career. I am sure he has a really bright future in the professional game if he continues to listen, learn and improve his overall game.

All the best Sena.

Echoing the manager’s sentiments, on behalf of everyone at Pollok we’d like to wish Sena the very best.

Our performance was nothing short of disgraceful from start to finish. You cannot win West Premiership games playing for 20 minutes and expect to win! Before people start to criticize the management team, our players were well warned what to expect from the game, our opponents and the need to start producing performances and winning results as our season to date has been really unacceptable. Having six points from five played isn’t what we wanted nor expected especially since we have been ahead in all of those games and have only once seen a game out to victory.

Defensively we were really poor with avoidable goals, missed chances when in front to put the game to bed and devoid of creativity and competitiveness in the midfield – add these things together and it doesn’t make for a good team.

We finished last season strongly and we really haven’t started this season.

As for the game itself, we didnt start the game well, looked sluggish and not at it and deservedly went behind at half time – in fact Jordan Longmuir saved us on a few occasions in that first period. After some strong words at half time, the players reacted in the right manner and took the game to Rob Roy then ended up 2-1 ahead and looking likelier to go on and win the match with goals to spare. For some reason they stopped playing, played within themselves, stopped doing the good things they did in first 20-25 minutes of second half and this gave Rob Roy encouragement to have a go which they took. All goals were very poor goals to concede. For the first goal Mark Sideserf played them onside, at the second, Ewan McNeil was caught wrong side then some bad defending from Danny Boyle followed and they had equalized. And the third goal, we don’t clear our lines, they get to the bye line and score a very soft third right on the goal line. In terms of performance, you cannot have three players in Jordan, David Gormley and Adam Forde as the only players who played anywhere near what they can and expect to win.

A really bad day at the office and we got what we deserved for sloppy display – nothing.

The on loan signing of Aaron Millar

We signed the young lad from Clyde to help bolster our forward options given the current situation with Stuart McCann, Gary McCann, Stefan McCluskey and David Gormley who is playing through the pain barrier for us. He’s a talented lad who has featured from the bench for their first team who was looking for more game time and experience of players against men. We have him on a short term loan agreement so we will see how this develops between now and January

The Irvine Meadow match

Obviously the first thing I would demand is the right reaction following a bad performance and result last week. We have made things extremely difficult for ourselves to get into the mix at the top with our results so far this season. I spoke with Brian McGinty on Saturday who was at our game so he will have been encouraged by what he saw and think he can come up and get a result this weekend.

The Pollok FC Open Day

All players and management attended the open day to show our support for the wider club. To my knowledge, the open day was a fantastic success and the whole club got a real lift for the support, the sponsorship and the general feel good factor around the entire club from the community, academy to the first team. We really need the club to stick together, support everything the club does as it really is the lifeblood of everything we are trying to do.

We don’t have a rich benefactor that many of the Ayrshire clubs have, we don’t have a huge single sponsor or social club that pumps tens of thousands into the club hence the reason since I joined the club I’ve had to manage my budget very closely, sell players every season in order to keep the club budgets in hand. Since I joined the club, the club has gained significantly in terms of transfers monies in which has helped the club in many ways. We try and work together to ensure that Pollok is financially healthy and run for the benefit of the entire club hence the need to continually be financially prudent.